Sheila Hamilton is a five-time Emmy award winning journalist and News Director at Kink.fm She hosts the morning show with Dave Scott. Sheila resides in Portland, Oregon with her husband, three girls and dog, Milo.

15 Comments

Interesting statistic for the question "I don't care. I already have insurance." I suppose if you didn't care then you wouldn't be participating in this poll. ;-)

Glad to see the results. Thanks for putting this together, Sheila.

Larry - 2 years ago

And I also agree with the other commenter on the way the questions were asked. Sheila, you're a journalist. You know that by asking whether we believe everyone should have access to affordable health care is patently misguided. It skews your poll to tell you what you want it to tell you. If you use the agreement to that question to turn around and say that 83% of us support the ACA, you are being a weasel. Don't be a weasel, Sheila, I like you.

Mitch - 2 years ago

I think we would do the citizens of the USA a better favor if we really worked on trying to control health care costs. This bill is called the Affordable Care Act but it is really propped up on the assertions of affordable INSURANCE. Care and insurance are not the same thing. I think this bill, regardless of it's unnecessary heft and haste, will cost the taxpayers more in the short term and the long term. Most programs run by the government are rife with corruption and this one will be no different. The cost of running the program will be burdensome, perhaps fatally so to the US economy. The cost of developing and implementing the website will exceed 600 million dollars before anyone ever even turns in a claim with their 'new' insurance policy.

And for every story of how "Obamacare has been soooo wonderful to me", I have heard ten saying exactly the opposite. And someone please tell The President and Jay Carney that we CAN handle the truth. We can handle it because we know what it is and it saddens us to watch them squirm and fib and fudge rather than just man up and admit that it's a zoo right now, that we're learning what works and what doesn't and keep those cards and letters coming.

Marcia - 2 years ago

With Obamacare I'll have a savings of almost $5,300 in premiums and medical expenses compared to what I'm paying this year. In '09 I broke my arm (which required a metal plate) and if I had my Obamacare coverage, I would have saved $10,000 in out of pocket expenses. I signed up through an insurance broker but afterwards, went to the national website and got in without any problem. Perhaps that's because I don't qualify for any assistance or because Oregon was forward thinking enough to have exchanges in place, I don't know but don't let all the "trainwreck" screamers keep you from signing up for health insurance.

louis walker - 2 years ago

For starters, might I respectfully suggest that your questions in the poll are ludicrous and are absolutely not an indication of support for the ACA. Why didn't you simply ask: "Do you support the ACA as it is currently written?" Your questions as written are polarizing and assume no option for a middle ground.

Secondly, please go back to the original speeches made by Obama when the bill was signed into law and make a list of the claims he made. None of them turned out to be true.

Let's just start with one simple premise; the cost. We were told it would cost $900 billion, with those numbers provided by the CBO. Now the CBO says it will cost over $2.7 trillion.

That means that the president has committed a $1.8 trillion act of fraud. If you'd rather claim that the president and his co-conspirators, Harry and Nancy, are simply incompetent and made an honest mistake I can accept that line of reasoning, but it is still not acceptable to the American taxpayers.

I suggest you call some local independent health insurance agents and ask them about the reactions they are currently getting from their clients.

I support your bringing this discussion to the public airwaves. Lets keep the discussion to the facts and quit worrying about which party created this mess. Just because someone disagrees with our point of view does not make them stupid or evil; to quote a great philosopher: "Can't we all just get along?"

Asking our elected representatives to slow down and do something correctly instead of quickly is neither unreasonable or extreme; it is simply what we would expect from a leader who cares more about his country than his own ego.

Mandi Stewart - 2 years ago

I paid for my health insurance for 8 years. This year I changed jobs and now have employer provided health insurance. Its a great insurance plan, but because it doesn't meet ACA requirements, I'm losing my insurance plan. Its a bad law that can take away good, existing insurance plans.

There is no such thing as "FREE" or "affordable" health care, and won't be until our society becomes less litigious.

We forget that every government supported program costs each taxpayer more money.

Pat Costa - 2 years ago

While I support the Affordable Care Act, it is the wrong solution to the problem. This country needs a single payer healthcare system, the time had come for companies to stop making obscene profits off the misery of patients. Unfortunately, there is a certain element here that will never allow that so we ended up with a system which provides limited coverage at high prices.

Kathryn Karppinen - 2 years ago

Misha - you have always paid for prenatal treatment and drug treatment. Most commercial insurance companies have covered these for years. I don't know why you would object to these being covered. I know many people are paying for coverages they may never need, but why all of a sudden do you object to them? I was never able to have kids, yet I don't begrudge someone else using insurance to pay for them. I worked as a customer representative for two different health insurance companies in the Portland area, and can tell you that many folks pay for things they may never want or need. That is how insurance works. Everyone pays into the pool, and everyone uses it. Personally, I feel that everyone needs insurance and am glad to see more people able to do so. I'm also willing to pay more taxes for it.

Misha - 2 years ago

We were lied to. "You can keep your insurance you have today". No. All health plans in the country, private and soon, business, will be restated. I am being offered a new health plan that I pay for privately, that complies with the ACA. Into the rates are now services mandated by the ACA that I neither need nor want. I am paying for prenatal care and drug treatments, neither of which I need or want. Evidently, not only the Federally offered plans uber comprehensive, every policy in the nation has to toe the line to the ACA and be rewritten. My current policy is toast and I get to choose a new ADA compliant one. As a results, my co-pays doubled. There are 30% payments come Jan. 1 whereas my new plan which I've had less than a year now, paid for all of a particular set of procedures. I am getting less benefit for more money. Providence here in Oregon is going to reset all new health plans, benefits and costs. HealthNet in California has sent out letters to everyone telling them that all old polices have to rolled over to the ACA compliant polices Jan. 1. . It's rolling out nationwide. And some people are being dropped by their carriers as too high a risk. This is not "keeping the same insurance you have today". The ACA has mandated a reset everything for everybody, not just the 30,000 uninsured or 20 somethings that sign up for the ACA plans. It's a bit too far of a reach to me. Solve the issue of the uninsured and under insured and let the rest of the system be.

Maggie J - 2 years ago

Scott B, where does it say anything about "free" healthcare in the first sentence? I for one am sick of my tax dollars going to bail out banks and Wall Street, give subsidies to oil companies and corporate farms, and defense contractors, while SNAP is being cut and our country's infrastructure is falling apart. 24 Billion wasted during the shutdown and another 70+ billion wasted on the political theater of attempts to repeal the ACA could have been spent for something useful, like a JOBS program, or restoring some of the cuts that have been made.

Casey - 2 years ago

A better question would be: Do you understand the ACA? SO MANY people have an opinion on this topic knowing very, VERY little about this very complex piece of legislation.

Scott B. - 2 years ago

Sorry, Sheila, your poll is biased. Of course, everyone wants "free" healthcare for everyone, but that's not what the ACA will deliver. Change your first question to "Yes, I believe all Americans should have health insurance and I am willing to have my taxes raised substantially to pay for it" and it would then accurately represent reality.

Also why does everyone use the term "access" when they really mean "paid for by somebody else". Everyone has "access" to health care right now, they just have to pay for it themselves.

Lisa Carroll - 2 years ago

Although I currently have health care coverage I am always worried that at any time I could lose it with a job loss. I am especially supportive of the provision to cover birth control with no co-pay, and being able to keep my children on our insurance untill they are 26. I am especially supportive because it will give many Americans access to mental health services, which is an issue i am very passionate about.

bridget - 2 years ago

It is barbaric that only folks that can generate a profit for health insurance companies have medical care.

Alan Scott - 2 years ago

I hope people give it a chance. Very little legislation works well right out of the box. If it's broke, fix it. I'm so tired of a throw away society....